Market Metrics

Total Crypto Market Cap: up 1.4% at $2.256T
Total AI Sector Market Cap: up 4.7% to $24.5B

Top Movers (24 hours):

📈 Synesis One (SNS): up 15.1% to $0.01938
📈 Arc (ARC): up 14.5% to $0.0283
📈 Covalent (CQT): up 13.8% to $0.1828

🎧 Sound Bites - EthCC Edition

David Johnston @ Morpheus

On Monday we hit DeAI day in Brussels and heard from David Johnston, founder of Morpheus, who delivered a compelling keynote on the urgent need for decentralized AI. Johnston opened with a great quote from Erik Voorhees:

This set the tone for the keynote, with Johnston highlighting the growing momentum behind open AI, citing a recent "Keep AI Open" event in San Francisco that drew 700 attendees. He then introduced Morpheus, a project built entirely through open-source contributions and a fair launch model. Morpheus aims to provide the essential components for AI development: capital, compute resources, publishing tools, and a platform to launch smart agents. We have covered Morpheus and it’s novel MOR20 launch mechanism extensively here.

A key point Johnston emphasized is the looming threat of restrictive AI legislation in the US. He warned that within 18 days, new laws could require licenses from homeland security to build AI models, impose KYC requirements for accessing compute resources, and potentially criminalize the sharing of open-source AI weights. This regulatory landscape underscores the urgency of decentralized AI solutions.

Johnston positioned Morpheus as complementary to projects like Akash and Bittensor, describing it as the demand side that matches with their supply of compute and models. He stressed that the crypto community's experience with adversarial systems makes them well-suited to contribute to the AI space. Conversely, AI can enhance crypto's user-friendliness, creating what Johnston called a "partnership made in heaven."

Notably, Morpheus operates without a traditional company structure, relying entirely on volunteer contributors. Johnston announced the launch of the MOR20 dashboard, enabling users to permissionlessly deploy contracts and raise funding for AI projects with just a few clicks.

Teana Baker-Taylor @ Venice.ai

We listened to several other panels and discussions throughout the day, but the chat between Teana Baker-Taylor, co-founder of Venice.ai, and Divid from Morpheus was particularly interesting.

We’re sure many in our audience use AI-tools, but have you considered the privacy implications of your favorite chatbot? Many popular AI tools collect and store your conversations, potentially exposing your data to breaches or misuse.

Baker-Taylor highlighted a critical issue: most AI platforms take liberties with user data, often adulterating information and also impose restrictions on queries. This lack of privacy and potential for censorship is a growing concern, and implies that big tech companies have programmed their own biases into the models.

Venice.ai, co-founded by Erik Vorhees and Baker-Taylor. Venice stores your conversation history locally in your browser, not on their servers. It routes encrypted requests through proxy servers to decentralized compute resources, ensuring your data remains private. This approach allows for anonymous usage and respects users as sovereign individuals - a stark contrast to many current AI models.

While maintaining strict privacy standards creates challenges, Baker-Taylor emphasized it's central to Venice's mission. The platform aims to make users more aware of their digital privacy without sacrificing ease of use. Features like private, real-time search access, which is unique to Venice, demonstrates that privacy and superior functionality can coexist.

As AI becomes increasingly integrated into our daily lives, it's crucial to consider the trade-offs we're making with our personal information. Venice.ai offers a compelling alternative: an AI tool that prioritizes your privacy and freedom of inquiry. You can check out Venice here.

Meme of the Day

Can confirm…